A Birthday Card, Two Potholders and Cross Stitching.

At the end of February I got an idea. From this spark I created an item that was designed and made as a potholder.

The first one you see, with the red border, I made for myself. The basic idea is to knit pillows either square or rectangle and put wadding inside. The colour scheme was worked out on a spreadsheet including the colour for stitching them together. The border is worked in eight pieces. The handle is made from a short i-cord stitched into the border.

Came out quite well but I could immediately see ways to improve it. So of course I needed to make another potholder.

I started making one putting less padding into the pillows. However I didn't like it which caused a change of mind.

I worked out a few different colour combinations on the spreadsheet and chose one to work on. Thanks to my other projects I have a rainbow of DK yarn in my stash. I decided first of all to use as much wadding as before. This time though I used a different method of attaching them to each other to make a much neater finish.

This potholder was made as a gift.

Now I said it was designed and made as potholder but once completed I decided it could fulfil multiple purposes.

It works well as a potholder

It works as a trivet.

It also works as a wall hanging.

My mum loved it. I must admit I was a little worried that she wouldn't. She also loved the flower basket birthday card I made featuring a decoupage. It is always good to get positive feedback whether from family, friends or customers. My mum also came up with yet another idea for the item designed as a potholder.

She is planning on hanging it up and using it as a pinpad.

It takes a bit of work to make so is probably not a great item to produce in mumbers for my craft stall. It is great for bespoke orders using colours of your choice and I would be glad to make them to order if you would like one. Just send me a request allowing lots of time to make it.

After all that I took a small break before I was knitting again doing squares for my BIG knitting project. I’ve got about three colours to go before I can start stitching. The biggest number of squares per colour is yet to do but it is chugging along. It’s quite relaxing to do some squares after all that designing and creating.

Then the Cross Stitch Card Shop magazine arrived with an irresistible kit.

The cross stitch card was a welcome change from knitting.

Here are photos of the cross stitch in progress.

Flipping hard to tell the white from the very light grey. I’m still not certain there even was a very light grey. My least favourite time is doing the back stitch stage. Great once finished but boring to do.

Then Craftseller’s April issue arrived... but that’s another story. More about that soon although if you ‘like’ my Facebook page you will find out a hint or two.

Time to make some cards I think... more family birthdays as well as Mothers Day approaches.

365 Project

The first daffodil blooms in my garden and the sun is getting warmer. A change in the season is so rejuevenating and spring is the most rejuevenating season of them all.

Not that the winter was quiet - my creativity has taken new turns and I am making things I never imagined I would be doing a year ago. What if I take on a challenge that requires a year?

Have you heard about the 365 project where you take a photo of yourself every day for a year? That gave me a brief thought of doing such a project myself. Note I said ‘brief’. About ten seconds.... the thought of taking my photo every day did not really appeal to me.

Then over the weekend I found Make Something 365 & Get Unstuck that brings together all 365 projects submitted by the artists, crafters and any other creative bloggers. I started to read through the articles focusing on the authors of creative and arty 365 projects and I was hooked. I mean this is something I could be interested in doing. I read interviews of people at various stages of their own 365 projects and the promise of unlocking new creativity and enhancing your own abilities were inspiring.

The truth is that rarely a day goes by when I am not making something, drawing something, writing something, planting, tending or growing something. What I do not do every day is blog and here is the key to my motivation.

Blogging more regularly is recommended I’ve read. Many of the blogs I follow post every day. Sometimes it is just a photo, sometimes a short piece of text, many posts are on a theme such as Wordless Wednesday, Flickr Friday, Folksy Friday.... and so on. I fear getting involved in themed posts for the same reason I worry about taking on a 365 project.

When I started blogging it was a means to record my creative adventures as I started making greetings cards for family and friends. Just a craft journal really until then I started thinking maybe I could sell my cards and improve both my income as well as rekindle my love of art. I’ve taken a laid back attitude and simply post when I have something to show off. As more people started following and my work changes I am challenged to develop into sharing information I am using to learn new skills both as a crafter and subsequently as a blogger.

I rarely post on the day I start writing. I like to write a first draft and then rewrite at least once before posting, often preferring to sleep on it before clicking the publish button. Well that's my excuse ;)

A 365 project would be a challenge but on the positive side I anticipate:

I will become more disciplined
I will become better organised
I will learn new skills
I will develop my creativity

You can obviously choose to do anything you want for a 365 project. These are some I found while researching:

A A Card A Day
A A Fan A Day
A Skull A Day

The Skull A Day project lead the creator Noah Scalin to write 365: ADaily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life to encourage you to take up the challenge. I've looked at the preview and it looks very interesting.

But that is not all... you don’t have to limit the daily craft to one individual:

Cranium Condominiums (great name eh) is a journal of any creative activity by a large creative family

Also if you miss a day for any reason you can just continue where you left off. And if you can’t complete the challenge you can start a new one when your circumstances allow.

With that I am seriously considering taking on the challenge and see where it leads. I’ve decided though to start a blog especially for this purpose. Now all I have to settle on is a theme.

Have you ever done or thought of taking on a 365 project? What motivated you to take on such a challenge or what stopped you? Did you start one and not complete it for whatever reason? Do you think you’ll ever try to do one again? If not why not?

Creative People Who Make, Draw, Do, Tweet!

A few days a go I made the decision to create a new online daily paper using Paper.li In just a few days it has proved to be a good step.

My Twitter list of creative people and a few hashtags such as #craft or #handmade provide the content, making it an interesting newspaper for craft. It can also be a good place to find good crafty people to follow or interesting posts you might have missed in the Twitter stream.

The title Make, Draw, Do, Tweet! is in reference to the creative people and those who love creativity that provide the news items through their tweets. There is a link to the paper in the right hand sidebar of this blog, updated daily.

Featured below are a few of the videos featured in today’s edition which I particularly enjoyed watching. I hope you enjoy them too.

Dusty Signs

Watching a skilled person at their craft is so inspiring and the music fits in so well with this traditional work.

Dusty Signs from Hunter Johnson on Vimeo.

Louis Vuitton

More skilled people working... fascinating what goes into making designer shoes.



Let’s... 2012

Here is a fun video of encouragement for the year. Great animation and papercraft.

In 2012, Let’s… from Interbrand on Vimeo.

And finally here’s a creative way to use a cup of coffee... or two ;) Watch and be amazed.



Check out the full edition of Make, Draw, Do, Tweet! for more videos, photos and great articles tweeted by some of the creative people of Twitter in the last 24 hours.

Writing Your Own Knitting Patterns

Following the addition of my knitted charms to my cards on my craft stall, I decided to work on a new challenge - writing my own knitting patterns. This is one of the many tasks keeping my crafty brain busy these days.

As well as consulting Julie C., an expert knitter and long time member of my blog community, who I mentioned in my post Snow and the Valentine's Craft Market, I spoke to a couple of other knitters I met at the Arts & Craft Market. All have been very encouraging about my knitted charms. Julie also kindly looked over a draft knitting pattern I created for the Satchel Charm and gave me some good points to consider such as my page layout, information to include and what to leave out.

The changes I made included:
- used a 2 column page layout
- included abbreviations in a text box on the first page
- added information regarding stitches used at the top of the pattern
- copyright information including that items made from the pattern are not to be sold but made for personal use only
- ensured that pattern is no more than 2 pages long


Naturally I’ve done some research on the web and many of the points Julie made were confirmed. I found the following sites provided guidance and useful information for designing and writing your own knitting patterns with tips on publishing. If you design your own knitted garments and want to know where to start with creating your own patterns you will find some information in the following. Let me know what you find useful or not:


1. HJS Studio Tutorial Designing your own knitting patterns

2. Knitty.com Knitting Patterns 101

3. Knitty.com Copyright [a primer for knitters]

4. How to Write a Knitting Pattern

5. Writing knitting patterns: how do you do it?

6. Knitting Patterns for Dummies (previews)

7. Knitting Patterns - the best way to publish your own knitting patterns

8. Spindling.com Knitting Patterns

9. Knitting needle size conversion [PDF]

More Knitting News

I’m working on a knitting experiment. If you check out my Facebook page you can see photos of the experiment in progress. Check out my page if your want to see what I've been making. I'll probably write about it soon in a future blog post. It may become a new addition to my craft stall in April at the Arts & Crafts Market at Hackney City Farm.

All these other projects mean I’ve stalled on my BIG Knitting Project - the Sonic knitted blanket for my grandson. But I did make this cool card for his birthday.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to reading your comments.

See you all soon.